Free Too Wicked to Tame by Sophie Jordan Page B

something she relished recounting. “One Season begins to resemble another after a time. There’s nothing extraordinary about Town life. I find country living far preferable.”
    “You would not say that if you’d never been more than ten miles from here.” Mina brought her knees up to her chest. “Perhaps I would not mind so much if Heath would let me attend some of the local gatherings.” She lowered her chin to her knees and stared at her toes peaking beneath the hem. “I could have at least a small taste of Society, even if not the glitter and bustle of Town.”
    Portia studied Mina’s profile for a long moment, realizing they were not so different. Both were struggling against the strictures foisted upon them, searching for their own happiness, their own kind of freedom.
    Feeling a sudden kinship with the girl, Portia grasped her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “Perhaps I can convince your grandmother to invite some neighbors over for tea while I’m here.”

    Mina shook her head. “Oh, Heath wouldn’t allow—”
    “I’m a guest here, am I not? Lady Moreton would merely be humoring the requests of her guest.”
    “You don’t know my brother,” Mina grumbled, her bottom lip jutting forth. “If he catches wind of it—”
    “Then we will simply see that he does not hear of it until it is too late.” Portia smoothly cut in.
    “Trust me. I know all about circumventing authority.” How else could she have avoided matrimony for these many years?
    Mina’s eyes sparkled. “From the moment you appeared I knew things would change.”
    “Indeed?” Portia asked, smiling wryly. Collapsing in a dead faint did not signify as the most auspicious of beginnings. “If my arrival strikes you as thrilling, then you are quite right. Your life is exceedingly dull. We must see what we can do to add some excitement.”
    Mina released her knees and clapped her hands. “Oh, you brilliant creature. My prayers were answered the moment you arrived.”
    Portia smiled grimly. What was the earl thinking, cloistering his sister from the world so that she went into histrionics over a simple tea? He was a tyrant. Clear and simple. No better than her father. Her mother had been unable to wear a gown if it did not meet her father’s approval.
    Everything from clothes to the company she kept had fallen under his inflexible purview.
    “Portia,” Mina dragged out her name, casting her a sly look from beneath her lashes. “Have you ever…kissed a gentleman?”
    Portia blinked, taken aback and wondering at the random question.
    As though sensing her bewilderment, Mina rushed to explain, her expression solemn and tense,
    “I only ask because you mentioned excitement.”
    Excitement? Kissing? Mina equated the two?
    Portia pulled back, exasperated. It was the same everywhere. Country or Town—nothing differed. Women looked to men to supply life’s excitement. Eligible gentlemen never roused anything remotely close to excitement within her. Portia winced, realizing she could not make such a claim any longer. Not since her path crossed the earl. But then, he couldn’t be considered eligible, could he? Or even a gentleman for that matter.
    Portia opened her mouth, ready to gently reprimand Mina on her unseemly questions, but then snapped her jaw shut. Mina had been denied quite enough in life. Chastised. Corrected. Bullied.
    She deserved forthright conversation at the least.

    “Yes,” Portia began, knowing she was about to dash Mina’s romantic notions. “Or to be more accurate, I was the recipient of a kiss.”
    Mina leaned in, her face brightening. “Was he handsome?”
    “His name was Roger Cleary. He was sixteen. The vicar’s son, and determined not to live up to his father’s lofty standards.” Portia laughed briefly, remembering that winter’s day after church in Nottinghamshire. “I was fifteen and didn’t see it coming.”
    “What was it like?”
    “It was,” she paused, searching for the